Heathenry
by Liave Ekeli
Summary: The murder of a wealthy, young man confuses the Major Case squad, and Captain Deakins thinks it best to call in reinforcements. In comes Miriam Sage of the National Archive, and she'll be in for a ride trying to adapt herself to a Major Case investigation
1. An unusual morning

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any part of the Law and Order franchise. It belongs to Dick Wolf, NBC and any other respective copyright holders. This story is written purely for my own amusement, no money is being made from it and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Author's Notes: **I would like to start by saying that I have nothing against the practitioners of religions based on Norse mythology, whether it is Ásatrú or any other variation, and I do not wish to offend anyone. I am, however, not one of those believing that Norse mythology defends the views of anti-Semitism or racism. That said, this story is written in a way that allowed me to use some of my own interest in the subject of Norse mythology and symbolism. Second, this is my very first fic written in the L&O fandom, I spent some time experimenting with this, and I'm still not sure if I've gotten it remotely right. Therefore I would appreciate feedback from you reading this. And third, and this could cause a problem of sorts, I've never been to New York city, so if I've done something totally off target, I would appreciate someone telling me so I can look like an idiot for the least amount of time possible. Fourth, and last, this is the longest Author's Note that I've ever written.

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What was that sound? Sharp, mechanical and loud it seemed to pierce not only her eardrums, but also the rest of her head. Then it stopped, and she breathed a sigh of relief, but alas, there it was again. Just as sharp and loud as last time. Her mind was now effectively on its way out of the hibernation of sleep and into reality, life and another morning. Was it morning already? It seemed like only a few minutes since she had fallen asleep. Still more asleep than awake she extended an arm to turn off the deafening sound. But it wasn't the alarm clock.Then it hit her. After alarm clock her mind went down the list of other things that could cause such noise, and ended up on phone. More specifically her cell phone, which was now chiming merrily, almost jumping up and down on her night stand because of the vibration mode.

With a sleepy groan that sounded, rightly, as if there was nothing she wanted more than to throw the bloody phone into the nearest concrete wall, and go back to sleep, she fumbled around her nightstand for it, sending an already unstable pile of assorted books crashing to the floor in the process. Pressing the 'answer' button, she held the phone to her ear; ready to tear whomever was on the other end of the line a new one for waking her, unless it had been for a damned good reason.

"Miriam Sage?" enquired the male voice on the other end.Instantly a little more awake by hearing her own name pronounced by someone else, she answered a "Yeah, this is she.""This is Captain James Deakins from New York, Major Squad."James Deakins? The name sounded familiar to her, but with her mind still working a bit slow from the abrupt awakening, it took her a few seconds to find the entry 'James Deakins' on her own internal hard drive. "Oh, hi… what can I do for you?"There was a short pause, and there was something about the silence that made him seem hesitant, thought Miriam to herself as she put her feet into her slippers and got out of bed. Her bedside alarm clock showed 5.45 am, in other words, way too early.The Captain continued."I have a case here that I think would benefit from your expertise."Now, this is strange, she thought. How could her expertise come in handy for Major Case in New York?"Captain, I assume that you do know just what my expertise consists of… I mean no disrespect, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand how that could possible be relevant to Major Case."Again, the voice on the other end of the line hesitated."It's a complicated case, and rather difficult to explain… I was wondering whether I could send you some photos that our guys took at the crime scene. Maybe you would understand more, and I could have your insights?"Miriam didn't know what to say, except "yes", so she agreed and gave the Captain her e-mail address, and in return got his phone number, agreeing to call him as soon as she had seen the photos. As she hung up the phone she thought that this day had every potential to be out of the ordinary, it had at least had an unordinary start.

A little over an hour and a half later, Miriam Sage walked into her office. It was medium sized, but still seemed cramped from the clutter that occupied all but a very few surfaces. It would, in all probability, be a rather quiet day, so Miriam didn't feel too guilty over being curious as to what the promised e-mail from James Deakins, Major Squad, would contain. After checking the surface of her desk for messages and other things she should see, she settled in her office chair and pressed the 'on' button on her computer. She used the few minutes it took for the machine to get ready to fix herself some tea, and she re-settled herself in her chair just as her desktop became visible on the computer screen, the image was of a large Ash tree that spread out across the screen. It was an illustration of Yggdrasil, the Tree of the World.

Opening her inbox Miriam quickly found a new mail from a J.Deakins. She opened it, and saw that there were several attachments, all of them with a .jpeg ending, indicating that they were all pictures. The contents of the mail itself was short, first a warning that the pictures showed graphic content, which was, judging by the way the warning was formulated, not a pretty sight. After that, the mail repeated what they had agreed on the phone a couple of hours previous.

Curious by nature, she didn't pay too much attention to the warning given, and opened the first picture. When the picture popped up she sat dumbstruck for several minutes, just staring at it. It wasn't so much the dead body on the picture that scared her, nor the fact that he was a murder victim. It was the feeling of normality that the picture conveyed. The young man in the photograph lay on a table made of white stone, as far as she could see it was marble. He had no clothes on his upper body, and if it hadn't been for the wound that was located directly where his heart was, she would have thought that he was merely sleeping. There was little blood visible, at least from the angle that this picture was taken. It didn't look like there had been any form of a fight; he bore no visible marks of having defended himself from whomever it was that had done this to him. He had simply lay down, and died.

After working past her reaction of the inhuman way of the young man's death, she spotted the first clue as to why Major Squad needed outside assistance with this particular case. There were markings on the young man's body, and they were markings not commonly used these days. Judging by what she could make out from the picture, the markings had been painted on his body either with fingers or a thick pencil. She could not make out what could have been used as ink, but she did recognize the markings. They were runes, Nordic runes, used by some centuries ago to carve stories into stone for preserving their memory through the ages, and by others to cast powerful magic both good and evil. She knew about runes, both through her studies and through interest. She also knew that runes were all but common in the age that she lived her life. So what were they doing painted on this poor dead man's body?

She opened the rest of the photos, mostly from the area that surrounded the body. It seemed the body had been found in a rather new, expensive looking apartment, from what she could see modernly furnished with sharp edges and smooth surfaces. The sight of the furnishing brought a small smile to her face, together with the thought "I could never live in a place like that" popping up in her head. She was fully aware that she was not the most well organized person, except from when she had to be in work-related conditions. Both her office and her home were usually in a variable state of mess, depending on if she had bothered to clear some of it up or not. Looking at the interior of this man's apartment, she could only conclude that, had she lived there, every available surface would have been filled with all and everything at the blink of an eye.

The next picture showed what she assumed to be the possible murder weapon. It was a long sword, beautifully decorated with silver and stones with a deep red glow. She caught herself wondering if the stones were real, because if they were, they would probably belong in a price range about the same as what she would make on a couple of years of work.

There were no more pictures attached to the e-mail, and she leant back in her chair, taking a deep breath, and tried to take in and comprehend what the images had shown her. After a while, she took a sip from the tea, which had now gone cold, and picked up the phone to make a call she now knew would definitely change at least the rest of her day, if not longer. The answer came swiftly on the other end of the line.

"Deakins.""Hi, this is Miriam Sage. I've looked at what you sent me…" A brief silence on the other end, and then;"So, what would you make of it?"Miriam decided to measure her words carefully when she answered him. "To tell the truth I found it somewhat…confusing. I have more questions than answers; some apply to my involvement and others to what I saw from the pictures."The answer was once again hesitant, as if Captain Deakins as well had thought that he was better off to measure his words. "I understand… ask the questions, but let me decide how to answer them. " Fair enough. First of all I want to know why you called me. I understand why you would want outside help, but wouldn't it be wiser to call in someone whose profession had more directly to do with symbols and their meanings?""Professionalism is not all that's important in this case, Miriam. I need someone I can trust…""…to keep this private and not to go to the press?" She inquired, but she knew she had come to the right conclusion. The striking silence on the other end of the line spoke for itself. "You said the case was complicated. In police lingua that's the same as saying high-profile. You need someone you know well enough to know that they can keep what they know to themselves. And you called me. As flattered as I am by that, I'm not sure how much I can help."

She heard a chuckle, and his voice saying;"I have a detective here that I think would love to meet you… But tell me what you saw on the photos I sent you.""I recognized the marks on your victim's body. As far as I could tell they're Nordic runes. Not exactly common anymore, they were used by the Vikings about a thousand years ago. I have no idea what they were meant to signify in this case, though. The pictures weren't detailed enough for me to make out any single rune.""I need you to do better than that, Miriam. I was hoping you could give me something solid.""I've been as specific as I can, I'm afraid, working only from the pictures you sent me.""Ok…then we'll have to do this another way. Is there anyway you could come to New York"Miriam wasn't by any means used to the situation she now found herself in, she was used to spending her days among the shelves and files of the National Archive, and she was happy with that. Now she had a police officer on the phone asking her to get involved in an ongoing investigation. All of this caused her answer to be rather hesitant. "There would be… if you can find a way to clear it with my supervisor, that is."She chuckled, and added; "…and I'd brace yourself for that one.""Consider it done." Was the quick reply, and that surprised her somewhat. Most other people she knew were positively terrified of her supervisor, and would most likely have hung up the phone at the mention of him. The only explanation she could come up with was that this had to be more important than she had realized up until now. "I want you here on the first flight you can get on, alright? I'll take the heat from your supervisor.""Ok. Then I guess I'll see you in New York."

When she hung up the phone she sat for a while wondering what she had now gotten herself into. She came to the conclusion that even if she questioned his methods, she had to at least give James Deakins credit for being well-informed. She had still not come so far as to comprehend the reality of what she now was to embark on. She had never been this close to a murder investigation in her life before, and she still didn't see what good she could do. She knew herself, and those around her, well enough to know that she usually was of more a nuisance than a help. But Deakins had asked her to come to New York, so she was going to New York. Besides, she thought, he can just as easily put me on a plane home if I get in their way.


	2. Welcome to the jungle

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any part of the Law and Order franchise. It belongs to Dick Wolf, NBC and any other respective copyright holders. This story is written purely for my own amusement, no money is being made from it and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Author's Notes: **Feedback is still very much appreciated, and it's my cue to keep this story going. No feedback, and I may not bother to write any more chapters.

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_One Police Plaza – New York City_

By the time her flight landed at LaGuardia, her curiosity had really begun working full scale. The feeling was double sided, as always, because Miriam knew well enough through experience that if there was anything that could get her into trouble better than most other things, it was her curiosity. The questions burning the inside of her mind were many, and none of them had satisfying answers. Why had the young man, whomever he was, been murdered in such a fashion? It was illogical to think that a murderer would bother to mark his victim with so uncommon symbols if they were without meaning. Unless it was done to confuse… The manner of the young man's death was another mystery to her. From what she could make out of the photos she had received earlier he had been stabbed clean through the heart, seemingly without making any attempt to resist or fight off his attacker. Had he perhaps been sedated, so that he was incapable of resisting? And why on earth had someone murdered him in the first place?

The same questions were in the back of her mind when she found her way to the eleventh floor of New York's One Police Place, and the Major Case Squad. Captain James Deakins met her at the door. He was what she could only describe as normally built, perhaps a little taller than average. He was wearing a grey suit, a light blue shirt and a tie in shades of grey and white that fitted nicely with the suit, He smiled as they shook hands, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. She guessed that whatever this case was that he had brought her in for, it was bothering him.

She threw a glance around the room as he led her into his office. She was slightly surprised that she could see no one there but the two of them, but assumed that it was because the other people that worked there had business elsewhere. Captain Deakins showed her to a chair in front of his desk, and closed the door behind him before he sat opposite her. It seemed he decided not to waste time, and pushed a folder across the desk, towards her. The folder was thick, containing at least two dozen printed sheets of paper, along with at least as many photographs, some of them Polaroid shots, some not. The first sheet of paper was a death certificate, from what she could tell. To it two pictures were attached by a paper clip, one of a young man with straw blonde hair and blue eyes, posing for the photographer in the height of summer, probably a vacation picture of some sort. The second was clearly taken after death, all the color of life was gone from his skin, and only the slightly bluish color of death remained. The sheer contrast of the two pictures made her speechless for a minute. It made her think about how easily it was to rip a life away, and with it all the possibilities that had existed in it.

She noticed that the man across the table was studying her, as if to see her reaction, and as fast as she had let the pictures draw her into grieving for someone she didn't even know, she let his glance draw her out of it again. She glanced down on the paper that the pictures were attached to, and read a name.

"Damien August Huntley II?"Deakins nodded, and leant back in his chair."The son of Damien Huntley, founder and director of Huntley Pharmaceuticals. Found in his home yesterday morning by his younger sister, Serena.""Was he found the same way I saw him in the photo you sent me?""Yes, at least that's what his sister claims, and we have no evidence to disprove it, which is part of where this case gets strange. He had no defensive wounds, no marks on his body except for the fatal wound to his heart and the…runes, that you identified for us, and there was no sign of a struggle or a clean-up in his apartment.""So, you're thinking this is a ritual thing… any indications besides the runes?""A ritual killing is our best theory right now…everything else we've turned up so far has been a dead end, literally. This case has few indications to speak of and precious little evidence. It's one of the stranger cases that I've had to handle in a while, and that should speak for itself. I need something to go on, Miriam… I need you to give me something, preferably something stronger than smoke, which is all we've been grasping at so far.

Miriam didn't answer him. Not because she had a sudden whish to be rude, but because she had been rifling through the pictures in the folder and noticed something."Are these close-ups of the markings on his body?"Deakins leant forward across his desk to see the pictures she was holding, shot a quick glance at them and nodded. "Yeah, the M.E took them for reference before the autopsy…""Have you identified what was used to mark his body?""It was some form of ink…but not the kind you would go and buy in a store. Expert said that it was probably home made. Analysis of what it was made of aren't back yet…"

She turned in her chair to give him a view of the photo she was holding, and pointed to the rune on it. It was in the shape of the letter F, but the two short lines were pointing in a downward angle. "See this… I'm taking an educated guess and saying that these runes are Germanic. The Germanic runes are the oldest kind, some where found as early as approximately 100 years A.D, in parts of Eastern-Europe…Romania, Germany and Russia. Some believe that the runes were invented here. Anyway, in this form of the runic alphabet, this rune is called Ansuz, or Aza, and means 'god', more specifically one of the gods present in the ásatrú, which is the name of the Old Norse religion. Either that, or it could mean divinity, much in the same sense.""This one…" She flipped to another picture. "Is called Reda."That rune was very much alike the shape of the letter 'R', except that its shape was more poined, as it would have been, carved in stone. "It means 'travel' or 'journey'." She brought out the next photo. The rune it showed was an 'X', as the letter, or the kind of crossed used to mark the spot on a treasure map."It's called 'Geuua' or 'Gebo'… it means 'gift' " Again she flipped the picture to the back of the ones she was holding, showing another one. It was very much alike the shape of an arrowhead, the way one would draw it if drawing fast and undetailed, a single straight line with two shorter lines extending from its top in a downward angle. "This is called 'Tys' or 'Tiwaz'. It could mean 'warrior', but it's also used as a symbol for the god of war -Tyr."She was now holding the last detailed close-up in her hand. It pictured a rune that resembled the modern letter 'M', except that on this rune, the two shorter lines of the letter shaped into an 'X', in that way reuniting them with the two longer lines."This is the symbol meaning 'man'. Its name is Manna, or Mannaz."

She threw the picture on top of the others, in the folder still lying on the table. Leaning back and taking a breath. She looked across the table, seeing the face of one who had been trying his best to pay attention to what she was saying, but not succeeding. She knew that look, she'd seen it before more times than she could count. For many people, perhaps most, what she has made her professional career was boring beyond belief. To each his own, and so on, she thought. She would normally not bother going out of her way to defend her choices, they were hers and she was happy with them. Here, there was no call for defense, but more of a smile and perhaps a recap, so she straightened up in her chair, and continued;"So, you've got runes meaning "god", "journey", "gift", "warrior" or "warrior god" and "man". You're the Detective, but I'd say that so far and from what I know, this supports your ritual-theory. I'm still a little skeptic, though…"He had stood up while she spoke her last words, and now he turned towards her and seemed to survey her again. "Why?"She turned halfway around in her chair to face him. "Historically speaking, human sacrifices did occur in the Old Norse religion, but they weren't by any means common. Usually it was animals that were sacrificed…""What about some neo-nazi group? Some of them have been known to use symbols like this in the past…"She shrugged. "Sure, it's a possibility… Some groups have been known to use these symbols, and the religion itself to support their views on the supreme power of the white race, and on the mixing of races, well, mostly anyway. The truth, again historically speaking, is that they have little, if any foundation in the religion or the symbols themselves to build such support on. And there are also groups who practice this sort of religion who take a strong stand _against_ Nazism and other such beliefs with a similar view on race. But won't that be hard to prove in a courtroom, unless you have something to connect your victim to either such a group, or something that could have caused him to be targeted by one…?"

Again, Deakins nodded, his expression showing that he wasn't pleased to have the weak points of his theory pointed out to him. "I brought you down here to help, not so you could point out the weakness of every theory I send in your direction!""Now you're being rude James…and ungrateful. I'm not a homicide detective, I don't see people or read evidence like you do. I'm an archive worker, for crying out loud! This is not the sort of thing I'm trained for. From what you've given me so far, I've told you all I can… I've told you the meaning of the symbols on his body, now it's your job to figure out what they represent in this case. You've given me one young man with symbols written on his dead body, and apart from his name, his fathers name, which is exactly the same by the way, and his father's employment, I know nothing about this Damien Huntley. I don't know his friends, his interest or what he does or doesn't do for a living! I can tell you a lot of things James, but I'm not a damn oracle! And besides, I'm not a lawyer either, but if you find a suspect, what I just questioned about your theory will be nothing to what the defense attorney is going to come up with. You know that…

His eyes found her quickly, and the look in his eyes told her that he was slightly surprised of her exasperated outburst. A second later it changed to a sort of understanding, and he said quietly;"I know…I'm sorry Miriam."That was all it took for her to become friendly towards him again. She smiled disarmingly, and said; "Don't worry about it… But if you want more than what I've given you, I need more to go on. Like I said, I'm an archivist, not a police officer. "

A short knock on the door broke off their conversation, and in came two people, a woman and a man. The woman looked to be in her late thirties, had dark blonde hair and brown eyes. The man, whom Miriam judged to be well over six feet tall based on the fact that she would have to tilt her head slightly upwards to be able to look him in the eyes, looked a bit older – somewhere in his forties perhaps, and had dark brown, slightly graying hair. The Captain, who had turned to face the door once he'd heard the knock, didn't waste a second. "The sister give us anything?"Both of the newcomers, whom Miriam now assumed to be detectives, shook their head. The woman said; "Nothing we didn't already know. Probably still in shock, poor thing, imagine what it must be like to find your own brother like that."Deakins nodded in an understanding manner, but it was apparent that he wasn't entirely pleased with the answer."So, where exactly does that leave us?"That question it was the man who answered, but as he did so, he appeared to look over his captain's shoulder and straight over at her. Miriam herself had gotten up together with Deakins when the two detectives came into the room, but now stood behind all of them, still slightly in front of Deakins' desk. She met the glance of the detective with her own, but said nothing. "The tox-screen came back showing large amounts of morphine in his system. Could be that the killer drugged him before he murdered him. Which indicates that whoever the killer is, he cared about the victim enough to not wish him pain or suffering."

"They just wished him dead…"She could help herself any longer, she was curious to know more, and hated to be left out of a conversation that she felt appealed to her. It seemed like the three police officers only know noticed that they were in fact not alone in the room, even though she knew that at least the tallest of the men had to have seen her. Deakins turned his head and looked at her for a moment, then smiled and beckoned her closer. "I was wondering when you would make your presence known... Miriam Sage, this is two of my detectives Alexandra Eames and Robert Goren. They're working the case I was telling you about. Goren, Eames, this is Miriam Sage. I called her in from the National Archives in D.C. She works for an old friend of mine, and I thought she might be able to help."Now Miriam understood why Deakins hadn't been spooked at the mention of her supervisor back in D.C, and it also explained how he had gotten a hold of her phone number. Miriam gave a nod, and shook hands with the two detectives. The woman gave her a disarming smile. The man on the other hand didn't smile, but he met her gaze with his own in a fashion that she wasn't really used to. It was as if he tried to see right into her heart, to see what she could be hiding in there. When he let go of her hand, he cocked his head to one side and said, with a hesitation that surprised her;"We're looking for someone who knew our victim…knew and probably also loved him. What confuses me is that there is no hesitation… One stab, one kill… These things contradict each other to such a degree that I… I don't know quite what to make of it. Maybe there was more than one killer…"

Deakins looked at his detective in exasperation, both his arms spread in a gesture that suggested that he was fast becoming impatient with the profiler he had in front of him."Right now we're going to have enough trouble nailing one person for this murder. We have virtually no solid evidence that's going to hold up in a courtroom, and as of right now we don't even have a viable suspect. I've got a dead 23 year old kid in the morgue, and superiors crawling all over my ass, I need you to get out there and give me something I can use, and I need you to play this one by the book," he paused and gave Goren a serious look "both of you…" he finished.

"Go take another look at his place… and see is you can dig up something more. And," he indicated Miriam with a hand gesture, "take this one with you. Let's see if she can help shed a little light on things…"

With a nod to Captain Deakins, Miriam left the room, following the two detectives out.

It was a grey day in New York, blackened clouds looming on the horizon, warning that rain might come at any moment. Although Miriam was trying her best not to look like an out-of-towner, she could not help letting her eyes wander all around her, taking in the pulsating rhythm of the city, which seemed to her like one giant living organism. Everywhere there were things catching her attention, and for a moment she thought that she might have been better of with a few extra pairs of eyes.

Alexandra Eames looked over her shoulder at the woman walking behind her, and smiled at the expression on her face. New York had that effect on people seeing it for the first time. "First time in New York, huh?"

Miriam reluctantly removed her gaze from everything that went on around them, and focused it on the female detective. _Busted_, she thought with a shrug of her shoulders. Smiling back, she said;"Yeah. I was hoping it wouldn't be that obvious, but I realize now just how hard it is to conceal.""Almost impossible, actually," said Eames, falling into step beside Miriam, "if I'd had a dollar for every time I've seen that look, I could afford early retirement."

_Damien Huntley's apartment – Manhattan, New York City_

The apartment building looked as if it had just been constructed, and judging from the patronizing look she received from the doorman upon entering this shrine to concrete, steel and glass, she understood that an apartment here wouldn't be in her price range before hell froze over. Not that she really wanted to live there, it was the kind of place where, at least she felt that her mere breathing was enough to destroy the perfect façade it presented to everyone who entered.

Following the two detectives into a nearby elevator, she watched as Goren – that was his name, wasn't it? She quickly searched her memory, finding her way back to earlier that day, in Deakins office. Yes, she concluded, detective Robert Goren - pressed the button of the top floor of the building. _Of course, _she thought to herself, _penthouse. What else?_

"Right," Eames started when they had all gotten out of the elevator. "You ever been on a crime scene before?""No."Eames searched through her pockets, and finding what she was obviously looking for, she threw a pair of white latex gloves to Miriam."Ok, put these on and let's see what we can find. We might have missed something the first time around. I'm still going to ask you to use your eyes instead of your hands as much as you can. A defense attorney would have a field day if they found out that we had someone unqualified handle possible evidence."Miriam nodded in understanding, and watched as the two of them started scouring the apartment for things that they might have missed on a previous visit.

She took a hesitant step forward, and looked around the room she had entered. She stood at the top of a small set of stairs, three steps that led from where the elevator was and into a large living room. On her right hand side there were huge windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, and offering an excellent view of the city. In front of the windows stood a large sofa and a couple of chairs, black and modern looking, and therefore no doubt uncomfortable, she thought. Almost every surface was white, the exception was the stone floor that had some grey and black veins in all the white, and brought her thoughts immediately to marble. From where she stood she could walk right into the kitchen area on her left hand side, where all the appliances were of brushed steel, and the countertops were marble like the floor. Across the room from where she stood, she could see a door made out of frosted glass, which she assumed led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Beside the door stood a desk in some sort of dark, expensive looking wood, with a surface out of marble, but as opposed to the floor and the kitchen countertops, this marble was completely white, in front of the desk stood Goren, apparently inspecting its surface in greater detail.

Slowly she walked down the three steps and down into the living room itself. She was slightly surprised that the young man who had been living here had actually read books, judging by the fact that he had bothered to fill the bookshelf that had been built into one of the walls. Her eyes wandered over the spines of the books in it, finding a few classics, some books on archeology, quite a few on historical subjects, focusing mainly on the early Middle Ages, and many books about mythology around the world. Here she also detected a favorite subject in Norse mythology, and she thought to herself that Deakins might not have been way off target after all, when he had thought ritual killing.

"Finding anything interesting," Goren inquired, peering over her shoulder and in the process making her let out a small scream of surprise and jump three feet in the air. "Jesus Christ…!" Miriam exclaimed, turning her head to face him."No, not much about him here," said Goren, giving her a wry grin that Miriam thought damn near insufferable right then. "…You scared the living hell out of me! Do you always creep around like a phantom?" As much as she wanted to avoid it, she couldn't conceal the smile that crept up on her face. It had, perhaps, been a little bit funny after all…"No," admitted Goren, straightening up, "only when I want to scare the hell out of people.""Something he does quite often," sounded the voice of Eames, who had just then opened the glass door at the end of the room, about to go into the room behind. Goren smiled a disarming smile at this, and said with mock world-weariness, as if he had been forced to defend his right to scare the hell out of people many times before."Well, what can I say – it was in the job description…" He gave another half smile in her direction, and studied her reaction with a mischievous spark present in his eyes that she was surprised to find there. He had struck her at first as a unconfident bureaucrat, his occasional stutter and seemingly unconfident mannerisms, the hand gestures in particular, only adding color to the picture, but now she wondered if she had misjudged him terribly, and in reality he was anything but unconfident. She had to admit that it was an excellent disguise. One she probably would not even have seen through if it hadn't been for the sudden changes in body language.

She moved away from the bookshelf and walked a few steps to the right, where a picture was hanging on the wall. Beneath the picture was a glass case where an intricate long sword lay resting on a dark blue velvet cushion. The framed picture depicted what she recognized as another runic symbol. "He had unusual taste in art," she remarked mostly out into the room itself, but also to Goren, who was still surveying the bookshelf. "Beautiful and expensive, but still…unusual"."What makes you say that?" Goren had walked left after leaving the bookshelf, and was searching with his eyes for clues in the opposite end of the room. Her remark, however, made him turn his head towards her to make eye contact. "He displays long swords in his living room, expensive replicas of swords found in Viking tombs. He has runic symbols on his walls," she indicated the picture right in front of her, "this one is called Aegishjalmur. It means the 'helm of awe', the Vikings used it as a warrior talisman. It was supposed to give the wearer protection and irresistibility in battle.""You know a lot about runes." He sounded slightly amused, in a way that wasn't offending, as it could have been in the words of someone else."I do." She agreed. "It's what I do for a living."She knelt down, to align her eyes with the glass case containing the sword. It was very well done, she concluded, even if she didn't know that much about metalworking. It had probably cost more to have made than what she paid to rent her apartment in a whole year. One who could spend that much on a single artifact to exhibit in his apartment, had to have a lot of money to burn. "There was another sword over there," he pointed to another picture, and another glass case, "it's gone, so I think it's safe to say that it was probably the murder weapon."

"You know what?" She straightened up, and walked towards the desk at the other end of the room. "I don't get why Deakins went through all the trouble of getting me down here from D.C. I don't feel like I've got anything to contribute that's going to help this case.""Miriam…that was your name, wasn't it?"She nodded." The use of different symbols are embedded in human nature, you don't have to be a cryptologist to realize that. It's a way to communicate… You see this case from an entirely different view than Eames and me. We think links, solid evidence and motive, you see ancient symbols and artifacts. Sometimes you need a different angle to see all the connections… Maybe when it all comes down to it, it'll be the symbols that crack this case open."Eames was back in the doorway, holding something in a latex gloved hand."Goren. I found this in the bathroom… morphine, almost empty. Goren didn't respond to this statement, but Miriam on the other hand, did."Why would a twenty three year old man have morphine in his bathroom? Not much to get high on there…"She looked at the two detectives, and they in turn looked at each other, and it seemed they understood perfectly what the other was thinking. Finally, it was Eames who said; "We need to see that autopsy report." To which Goren replied nothing, but instead swiftly took a cell phone from one of his pockets and dialed a number.

In the mean time Miriam had walked to the empty glass case on the other side of the windows. The picture above it was also that of a runic symbol, this one called the Vegvisir, also known as the Runic Compass. It was another talisman, meant to lead the way for its bearer.


	3. Family

**Disclaimer: **Law and Order: Criminal Intent and its characters are the property of Dick Wolf and NBC. No copyright infringement is intended, and no money is being made. This fanfiction is written for entertainment purpose only.  
**Author's Notes: **Third chapter up! Reviews and feedback are greatly appreciated, especially if it's in any way constructive. Enjoy!

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_Major Case Squad – One Police Plaza, New York_

The rain had come down on their way back to the offices of Major Case. Only the few seconds it took for them to get from the parked car and in the door of the building had left them well on their way to being drenched in water. Once well inside they all discarded their jackets, and Goren was quickly over by his desk, smiling when he found what he was looking for – the autopsy report for Damien Huntley.

"The C.O.D was the stab to the heart. Straight through, he died immediately. But Damien Huntley may have been living on borrowed time anyway. He had cancer…leukemia."Silence, just long enough for it to be noticeable, and an exchange of looks between the two detectives, that Miriam saw but couldn't decipher.  
"23 years old and you're diagnosed with leukemia. That's got to suck…"  
Miriam had settled in a chair on the other side of Goren's desk, where Eames already stood beside him. The last statement came from Miriam. Eames, it seemed, didn't bother stating the obvious, and instead asked;  
"Was he in treatment?"  
Goren nodded. "Yeah, says here he'd probably been receiving it for some time."  
"It explains why he had morphine in his apartment, and in his system."  
"The amount in his system was so high that we're beginning to talk about an O.D. If he was trying to commit suicide, then it could be that someone walked in on him and instead of trying to help him decided to finish the job."  
"It still points to someone who knew him though. Maybe someone was waiting for the perfect time."

Miriam had been listening to the two detectives talk about cause of death, overdoses and possible motive for murder. But there was one thing that bothered her more than all of this.

"Why pose him? If one only wanted Damien Huntley dead, for whatever reason, why bother to pose the body like that, and scribble obscure symbols on his body?"  
Goren looked up from the autopsy report, which he was still holding, and looked straight across the desk at her. "To send a message. To tell us something…"

"A message would logically be easily understood by those who read it. This is not. The majority of people in this country have no idea what runic symbols look like. So why use them?"  
He was still looking at her, studying her features and seeing the frustration in her eyes. "Maybe whoever is trying to get a message across, isn't trying to get it across to us, but to someone else… If we find out who, then that brings us one step closer to finding the person who did this."

A split second after he had finished the sentence, he broke their eye contact and turned to Eames. "Let's try going talking to his parents. I want to know if they knew their son had cancer."Quickly he got up, and prepared to follow Eames out the door of the Major Case offices once again.  
Miriam sat there, watching as they both ignored her, and disappeared out the door. She didn't even bother being angry, or wonder why. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was just the way the two of them worked. She was a disturbance to them, however well they had managed to mask it. The reason she wasn't angry or insulted, was that she knew how that was. To have an almost secret code of conduct with the one you worked with, having to work around any disturbances from the outside. It was one of the best kinds of working relationships she knew about, and there was really nothing she could or would do to change it. Instead she decided to dig into what she knew best; the symbols. She had kept the pictures from the folder that the captain had first shown her, and she knew the pictures on the wall of the victim's apartment by design. What she needed was some references, which, she wasn't surprised to discover, the Major Case offices didn't have. What she needed instead was the New York library, and a way to get there.

She found her phone in one of the side pockets of her backpack, and searched the phone's directory until she found the name she was looking for. Even though she had never been to the city before, didn't mean she didn't have friends there. After four rings someone answered on the other end. "Fran, hey, it's Miriam. I need you to be my GPS over New York, can you do that?"

Just as the door slammed shut, Alex Eames turned to her partner.  
"You don't think that was a bit rude, just leaving her here?"  
"She doesn't need to see what a couple of distraught parents look like."  
"You're trying to protect her?" When her partner didn't answer, Eames smiled to herself.  
"You like her, don't you…?"Still no answer and Eames let it go, like she usually did. If there was anything she had learned about being partner with Robert Goren, it was that there was no use trying to get any more information out of him than he was prepared to give you. If you did try, he would normally close up like a clam, and then you would have hell trying to get _anything_ out of him.  
_  
The Home of Damien and Sonja Huntley – Carnegie Hill, New York City_

The atmosphere in the home of Damien Huntley senior and his wife was just the kind of atmosphere Eames and Goren had met so many times before, but regardless of that neither of them had gotten used to it. It was the kind of atmosphere that is in a place where parents have found that they will have to bury their children, and not the other way around. They where met at the front door by a manservant, who escorted them both into a living room, impeccably furnished, but a far cry from the glass and cement apartment that their son had occupied. Mr. Huntley stood to greet them, and they shook hands. Mrs. Huntley on the other hand seemed not to notice them, it was instead as if her eyes were staring at something that only she could see, something in a very different time or place from where her living body were, sitting in a sofa, slumped among the pillows. She said nothing to them as they settled down in the chairs offered them, but kept staring at something that was beyond her reach.

Damien Huntley sr. cleared his throat, signaling very well without using a single word, that he would like for them to get started on whatever business they had there. Goren took that as his cue to say something.  
"Mr. and Mrs. Huntley, we're detective Goren and Eames, with Major Case. We're investigating your son's death, and it would be helpful for us if you could answer a few questions."  
Mr. Huntley gave a small nod, as if giving his permission for them to continue. Goren and Eames looked at each other, in an effort to figure out who would be asking the questions. Eames decided, with a small, almost unmarkable, nod to Goren, to take that job upon herself.

"We need to know if Damien had any close friends that you met, or know of?"  
The husband and wife exchanged looks, and the husband took immediate control of the answer. "We didn't know any of his friends. We weren't…close, with our son."  
"I understand that, Mr. Huntley," said Eames, "but are you sure your son never mentioned any names to you at all? It would really help, if we could track down some of his friends, to ask them some questions."  
The father looked like he was about to give a negative answer again, and with that declare the matter definitely closed, but suddenly it seemed that the mother snapped back into the real world just long enough to say; "There was one, a girl. I think she may have been his girlfriend…"  
This made both Goren, who had disregarded the rules of politeness, and was wandering slowly around the room, and Eames, who still sat in a chair facing the two Huntleys, sharpen their senses."…her name was Kaye Kegler. I met her briefly, once. She's the only one I know about." And with that she seemed to drift away again, to somewhere only she knew.  
"Thank you, Mrs. Huntley, that's very helpful." said Eames quietly, as if not to scare the older woman.

Goren had stopped wandering, and turned towards the two sitting in the sofa.  
"Your son's autopsy report showed that he was sick, that he had leukemia. Where you aware of this?"  
Huntley senior looked sharply at Goren, as if he really wanted to throw him out just for approaching the subject.  
"Yes." The word was uttered strongly and precisely, almost as he spat it out of his mouth, giving the impression that there was nothing Damien Huntley didn't know about his son, even though he had admitted that he wasn't close to him.. Robert Goren had worked long enough to know that this usually signified the exact opposite.

There was nothing much more useful information to pick up from Damien Huntley's parents, and judging by the way they had acted, the felt that they had given the police too much to work with already. All things considered, and also taking into account that Damien Huntley senior had pulled a great deal of strings to crack the case fast, the family seemed less than eager to help solve the murder of their oldest son. Goren and Eames only consolation as they left the Huntley estate, was that they had gotten one more name, one more person, and one more possible link in the chain. Still, it wasn't half as much as they could, and would, have hoped for.

Darkness had fallen when they came back to Major Case, and they debated for a while whether or not to track down this Kaye Kegler right then, or let it wait until the next morning. They decided on the last, an unspoken understanding of the need to call it a night between them, settled the matter. Eames was just on her way out the door, when a remark from Goren made her stop.  
"Eames…," his voice called, unusually hesitant, "where's our code breaker gone?"  
She turned, and was surprised to find a worried look in his eyes.  
"She's probably been a bit smarter than we are, and gone to find somewhere to sleep tonight. Don't worry, Bobby, she's a big girl, she can take care of herself."  
Eames gave him one last, reassuring smile, and disappeared through the door.

Robert Goren leant back in his desk chair, and took a deep breath. This case was going forward so slowly that he wasn't really sure it was going forward at all. Damien Huntley was dead, his family had nothing to say, nothing to say that brought them any closer to the person who killed a defenseless twenty-three year old man. Except one thing, the name of a possible girlfriend, now their only new lead. So, tomorrow would either bring a breakthrough, or they would be back to square one.

The opening of a door brought him instantly back to full awareness. Closing the door behind her was Miriam, who smiled when she saw him.  
"Hi. I didn't expect anyone to be here this late, but I thought I'd check."  
"Where have you been?" He realized just a second too late that his voice had sounded a bit stricter than he had intended it to. What exactly was he thinking, anyway? Eames was right, there was a grown woman standing in front of him. What business was it of his, where she had been? It didn't stop him from being curious though.  
"Nice to see you too." she countered.  
"Oh, and it was very nice to invite me with you, when you went to see Huntley's parents, by the way."It was the fact that he sounded more like a parent than an equal that had set her off just there. She hadn't really minded that he went off with his partner, without her. It was his job, after all. But that didn't mean that he had any right to question her about where she had been or what she had been doing. She wasn't one of his suspects, she was here, trying to work with him, and trying to help.

"What good would you have been there? Could you have lured anything out of them that Eames and I couldn't?""No! But I have been called in from Washington to be a part of this investigation, so I would appreciate to be included. If you don't need me, then tell me to get on a plane home, and I'd be only too happy to go. I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs anyway!"

Right then, Robert Goren understood that he wasn't the only one harboring frustration at their lack of progress. He rose from his chair and walked slowly towards her, holding his hands in what was meant, and what he hoped she would interpret, as a calming gesture.  
"Hey, hey…I'm sorry. It wasn't meant like that, ok. I just didn't think you needed to see what parents who have just lost their child look like.""You could have asked. What do you know of what I have and haven't seen?"

He looked at her. They were standing close now, so close that if he had reached out with his arms, he could have held her. He felt a sudden urge to do just that, but he didn't. Instead he saw aggression in her eyes, anger of being left out. But it was mixed with something else…sadness, or sorrow.  
"I'm sorry," he repeated.  
She shrugged, and as she did so, the look in her eyes changed back to normal, and almost unreadable.  
"Never mind. I'm the one who should be sorry. I don't usually get that carried away by my line of work." She smiled. It was meant to be disarming and to make him forget what he had just seen. But he couldn't do that, he wondered what she had seen, what he had seen for a brief moment, in her eyes.  
"It's alright," he said, "It's been a long day."

He took a few long steps back to his desk, and picked up his coat. Turning back to her, he smiled, and said; "Are you hungry?"

"That depends," she said back, in a teasing manner, very different from the anger and frustration she had exhibited only a few seconds before, "are you inviting me out to dinner?""Yes," was the short answer.

"Let's go."She swung her backpack back onto her shoulders and headed for the door. Goren put on his coat and followed suit.  
"Miriam, you never did answer my question. Where were you, while we were at Huntley's parents'?"


	4. Late night investigations

**Disclaimer:** Everything from Law and Order: Criminal Intent belongs to Dick Wolf and NBC. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made from this story. The only character that is of my creation in this story is Miriam Sage, and accordingly, she belongs to me.  
**Author's Note:** I know it's taken me a while to get this chapter up, but I have been quite busy for the past moth, having had a job for some of my summer holiday, etc. Anyway, it's here now and I hope you enjoy it. All the reviews I've gotten so far has been greatly appreciated, and it would make me very happy if you, who are reading this story, would leave a review for me. Enjoy!

* * *

She managed to avoid answering up until the moment when they settled at a table in a restaurant that seemed a little off the beaten path. Despite this, Goren seemed familiar with the menu and, not being so herself, she let him make the orders. When the waiter had left them, he looked across the table at her, and the look in his eyes were of such a character that she had no opportunity to mistake it for anything else than what it was; curiosity. Still, it was different than the curiosity she herself possessed in alarming amounts. She got the impression that it wasn't just curiosity about where she had been, and how she was planning to answer him. It was bigger than that, he seemed curious about _her._

Needless to say, it surprised her. She was not accustomed to having anyone being curious about her. The reason was that so far, every man she had come across had displayed a look of utter boredom the split second she said what she did for a living. Sometimes she felt as if being an archivist was equal to being a nun, trying to get lucky. But, when she came to think of it, it wasn't just the men. Almost everyone she came across exhibited a mental yawn when they got the response to their question about her occupation. It had stopped bothering her long ago, because to her it seemed that most of these people that she met, had never been to a library in their lifetime, much less an archive.

"Where were you?"  
The question, put forward in a direct, but not unfriendly manner, was asked for what had to be at least the fifth time since she had entered Major Case to find no one there but Goren.  
"The library. Where else?"  
She took a sip from her glass and studied him across the table. Now he seemed somewhat surprised, like he hadn't expected the answer.  
"Really?"  
"What better place is there, when you need someone to just give you the facts? Books don't have their own opinions, whereas people tend to throw in their opinion for good measure, whether you asked for it or not."

He smiled, and for some reason seemed to be enjoying himself, without her quite understanding why. It hit her that this was the first time she had seen him smile, really smile and she thought of how well that suited him. She smiled back, but a second later she gave herself a mental reprimand. This was hardly the time or place to start flirting, she reminded herself. He had a job to do, and so did she. But the reprimand didn't manage to wipe the smile off her lips.

"You're smiling…" she remarked, "A fellow book lover, then."  
"What makes you say that?"  
"If you hadn't been, you wouldn't understand my attraction towards books. Perhaps you would claim that one could get the same information from the internet or from another source. And you would have been right, to a degree… The fact that you haven't said anything makes me think that we're alike, at least in that."

There was a pause when the food came, and they ate a while in silence. Both were hungry after a long day of work. "I'm impressed," he said suddenly. She looked up from her meal, bewildered. "What? Why?"He shrugged, and finished chewing a piece of broccoli before he decided to elaborate his answer.

"You're right. I suppose book lover is an accurate description… It's rather useful actually, in this line of work. Knowing a little about many things can come in handy some times."  
"I can imagine…"  
"Did anything come of it? Your visit to the library, I mean…"

Now it was her turn to shrug, and before she answered him she took a sip of wine and leant back in her chair. "Confirmation mostly. I didn't want to misinterpret anything now. There's other things at stake here than my pride in my work."  
He nodded in agreement. "The parents didn't give us much we could use… The mother gave us the name of a woman she thought was her son's girlfriend. We're going to try and trace her tomorrow. But if that turns out to be dead end, we're back at square one."  
"Not a good place to be right now…" she agreed.

They had both finished their meals now, and each sat there for a moment measuring the other. Then, suddenly, Goren was on his feet, a dangerously eager glimmer appearing in his eyes like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. He searched around in the pockets of his jacket, found what he was looking for, and threw the payment for their meal down on the table. She just sat there, astonished over the sudden change in his behavior. He now stood, putting on his coat, and giving her a look of anticipation. He was clearly waiting for her to follow his lead. When she didn't show any immediate signs of doing that, he fixed her with a gaze of impatience.  
"Come on. We have to go."

She studied him for a moment to see if he was serious, and when she had to conclude that indeed he was, she got up rather gingerly from her seat and fetched her coat from the back of her chair. While putting it on, she sent him a look of wonder, and raised an eyebrow at him. He ignored them both, waiting impatiently for her to finish.

Back out on the street he strode along so fast that she almost had to break into a run to keep up with him.  
"Goren! Wait!"  
It was as if he snapped out of a form of trance, and only now realized that she was there. He slowed down enough for her to reach him and break into a stride beside him. The night had become colder than the day that had gone before it, and a fine mist came from her mouth when she spoke to him. "Where on earth are we going, and why are you in such a hurry to get there?!?"

He looked at her, and his eyes gave away a boyish eagerness. "A different perspective, another angle…"  
"Would you stop talking in riddles please?"  
Now the look in his eyes changed to something more mischievous, and he smiled a smile that seemed destined to annoy her.  
"I thought you had your daily dealings in riddles, Miriam."  
"I would have thought a Police Detective would be better informed, I'm an archivist, not a cryptologist. Are you going to tell me where we're going at the speed of sound, or not?"  
The smile was still there, and to her surprise he shook his head. "Nope. You've had your chance to be secretive this evening, and you took it. Now it's my turn."

They kept walking for a while in silence, and Miriam's curiosity about what they were doing grew to become almost unbearable. She hated the fact that she had not been able to resist the temptation of keeping Goren on his toes for a while, because now she was being treated to a dose of her own medicine, and she didn't like it. She didn't like anything that made her feel left out, and she knew that in one way that was wrong of her. She couldn't expect people to share everything with her, but lord knows it didn't stop her from trying.

They had been walking for what seemed like an eternity when she found that she was in a familiar place.  
"Wait a second; I've been here before…"Again she saw the smile on his lips, as a apartment building she knew from earlier that day came into view in front of them.  
"You're going back to Huntley's apartment?!?"  
"Yes."  
"At this hour in the night?"  
"Yes."  
"What on earth could you expect to find here now, that you didn't find this afternoon?"  
This time he didn't answer her, but lead the way into the building. There was another door man there now, and as opposed to his predecessor, this one gave her a smile as he held the door open to her.

There was absolute darkness when they stepped out of the elevator, and the only thing that illuminated the place was the thousands of lights from the city outside the large, magnificent windows in the living room. Only now did Robert Goren say something.  
"Different hour, different perspective. We're alone…we have all night, we can search this place from floor to ceiling if we need to."  
"What makes you so sure we'll find anything?"  
"Experience. I haven't yet been to a crime scene that hasn't held one single clue to the case's solution."

Silence fell between them for a moment, and Goren searched around to find the light switch. After a few seconds light came spilling down from the spotlights in the ceiling, casting light and shadow around the apartment. She jumped when suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders, and realized that he had again materialized behind her without her noticing.  
"Look around," he urged her. "Tell me what you see."She turned around, towards him, surprised of him saying that.  
"Why? You're the detective…"

Miriam had hoped for an answer, but all she got was a challenging look and a half smile.  
"Right…different viewer, different perspective."  
When she spoke the words his smile turned into a grin. "Very good. You're catching on…"  
"What exactly do you want me to look for?"  
He had started walking with slow steps around the apartment, and, still hesitant, she followed him, taking a few cautious steps after him.  
"I don't want you to look for anything. I want you to look, and then tell me what you see."

After that, none of them spoke for a long while. Miriam felt that she was really just strolling around in a dead man's apartment, being of precious little use. On a whim she found herself in his kitchen, opening a few of the cupboards and drawers. She found nothing of interest or out of place, there was only what could be considered the normal kitchen cutlery and appliances, however high end they were compared to others of their kind. When she came to the fridge, she opened it more out of boredom than hope of actually finding something. At first she saw nothing out of the ordinary, lots of take-out and little else. Not unusual for a 23-year old, she thought to herself. She was about to slam the door of the fridge shut when something stopped her. It was a smell that didn't belong in a fridge, it wasn't something rotten or moldy, it was just not supposed to be there. It smelled like… she searched her memory to place that smell, and after a few seconds she found it. It smelled like iron.

She started to search through the fridge, moving cartons and boxes of food, to find the source of the smell. In the back of the fridge, she found it, a large clear plastic box containing a jet black substance. She called out to Goren.  
"Hey! The Vic wasn't much of a cook, but I may have something."  
He appeared from behind a corner and took the three steps up from the living room to the kitchen in one leap. Soon he was beside her, also looking into the fridge at what she had found. He reached out a hand and grabbed the box, pulling it out of the fridge. Straightening up he examined the content, carefully opening the lid.  
"Iron…?" He said, wonderingly, and she nodded.  
"Ink. Judging by the texture it's not the kind used for writing."

He surveyed her, and in his eyes she thought she saw a look of approval. He nodded in agreement.  
"No, you're right. This is a paste, not a liquid, meaning that this is probably the kind used for printing newspaper and the likes."  
Now it was her turn to nod, and then something struck her.  
"The marks used on the victim didn't bleed… If someone had used liquid ink to write them, the ink would have dripped and smeared before it dried."  
"So, we can rather safely assume that this is the same ink used to paint the markings on the victim, and if not, it's in all likelihood the same type."  
He caught her glance, and now there was something competitive in his features, not towards her, but towards whomever it was that had taken Damien Huntley's life. Finally it seemed like the investigation was going somewhere other than in circles.  
"Let's keep looking," he said eagerly, and she nodded in silent agreement.

They spread out again, and Miriam found herself being drawn by her curiosity through the living room area and towards the bedroom door that had been left ajar when they left the apartment earlier that day. Inside it was dark as a tomb, and she fumbled about the wall near the doorframe on both sides of the entrance to find the light switch. She found it, on the doorframe's right hand side, and discovered that the lighting consisted, like the living room, of several spotlights in the ceiling. _Probably just the standard light fixtures that came with the place_, she thought. She didn't imagine Damien Huntley to be one to care about the light fixtures of his apartment.

Adjusting the spotlights just so that she could see well enough to find her way around, she walked a few more steps into the room. Not surprisingly it was dominated by a king size bed, simple in its design, and yet it had probably cost a small fortune. The headboard was black, rectangular and covered with leather. The rest of the bed continued on the well known color scheme of black and white, the linens being just as simple as the bed's design. No decorative pillows or bedspreads, everything about the bed was plain, but without loosing the ability to give an impression of how much it must have cost to purchase. _Everything in this place is about money_, Miriam though to herself as she stood looking around the bedroom. It was one of the best reasons she could think of why she wouldn't want to live in a place like this, even if she should have the money, and she couldn't help but wonder if Damien Huntley had liked it, or if the constant display of money in secret had made him sick, just as it now did her. The display cases in the living room told her that he did, in fact, enjoy it, but apart from that there was little in his apartment that indicated that he liked showing off his family's money, and it was these two things that caused her to ask herself the question.

The rest of the bedroom seemed almost unnaturally uninteresting at first glance. Here, even more than the living room, it was as if no one really lived and slept there and the whole thing was just there for display. The same smooth surfaces and hard edges that filled the rest of the place also made its presence known there, and just glancing around Miriam saw nothing worth noticing in hopes of helping solve the puzzle laid out in front of her.

As she started a more thorough search after more that could point them in the right direction, she realized that, even though it looked like a showcase at first glance, a real person had once lived here. There were clothes in the wardrobe, and all kinds of things in the various drawers. In a nightstand on the right side of the bed she found what she assumed to be various medications used to treat cancer, along with some bits and pieces not uncommon to find in a nightstand drawer. On the top surface of the same nightstand lay a book about much the same subjects as the books in the living room bookshelf, open on a page a little more than halfway through.

"This guy does not read anything that's not scientific. I haven't seen a piece of fictional literature since I came in here… How do you live like that?!?"  
"Like what?"  
The voice came from the doorway behind her, but this time she had heard the steps, and knew that he had entered the room after her.  
"Without reading anything that's made up, anything fictional... I mean, how did he dream, what was his way of escape from everyday life?"  
His steps came closer, and soon he was there, crouching beside her by the nightstand, and their eyes met.  
"Not all people read for recreation…some go and see a movie, a play, musical… others spend time with their family, have a hobby, do sports, or a combination of the above."  
"But you read."  
He didn't answer, but looked at her and smiled, like he knew that a statement like that could, indeed only come from a fellow book lover.

Rising to his feet again he looked around, and his eyes seemed to scan the room for anything that might be connected to what had happened to Damien Huntley. He started to wander around, step by step, not having a reason to go in a specific direction. She found it fascinating to watch how he let the room itself lead him around, guiding him slowly to all its secrets. He stopped at the other side of the king size bed and stood for a moment as if he was listening to something that only he could hear, then he knelt down again and inspected the bed itself in more detail. Miriam couldn't quite fathom the point of doing that, but decided not to remark anything and instead only gently shrugged to herself.

She stood up, her knees beginning to ache from being crouched down beside the nightstand. Suddenly, before she had the chance to move one step, she heard a clicking sound, like you hear when a lock is being opened, and spun around on her heel to see where it came from. Beside the bed stood Goren, now a triumphant gleam in his eyes, looking at what proved to be a secret compartment inside the headboard of the bed. Producing a flash light apparently from thin air, he leant closer to see what it contained. Quickly she took three steps across the room to join him.

What he had discovered was a black, leather bound book, maybe an inch thick. Its only decoration was a pentagram, a five pointed star with a circle around it, that in a silver color. Besides its own pages, the book was filled with notes, post-its and pictures fastened to the pages with paper clips.  
"It's a Book of Shadows," Miriam explained. "Usually they're used for practicing witchcraft, for rituals, spells… that kind of thing. But Damien Huntley seems to have used it almost like a journal…"  
"Whatever it is, it meant a lot to him. Why else would he hide it so well?"  
She nodded in agreement, and felt as if they had discovered a piece of Damien Huntley's true life. She could only assume, but what people wrote in their journals tended to be personal, to tell the story about them, and the people who surrounded them. She smiled at Goren, and he smiled back. It seemed like the same thought had struck them both, that being that this could very well be their most important found yet.


	5. A thorough search

**Disclaimer: **All the characters of Law & Order: Criminal Intent are the property of Dick Wolf and NBC. No money is being made from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Author's Note:** The character of Miriam Sage is my own creation and belongs to me. Sorry for the late update, but lately I have suffered from a very annoying case of writer's block, and although I know what is going to happen I have struggled to get it down on paper. But here is the next chapter, finally, and I hope you enjoy! Please leave a review, it means so much to me knowing what my readers think!

* * *

The sky had cleared a little by the next morning, but still some thick, gray ribbons hung over the sky as the rush of hundreds of thousands of people on their way to work brought the city to life. Among them was a young woman in jeans and a red long-sleeved sweater, covered by a dark brown leather jacket, her auburn hair kept away from her face with hairpins. There was a smile on her face, even though she still hadn't quite shaken off the stiffness that came from sleeping of a two-seater sofa, in a living room that belonged to a friend from school days passed. Her dark brown eyes hungrily drank in the scene of the city around her.

Back in Major Case Miriam met up with Eames and Goren, both of them about halfway through their first cup of coffee of the day. She grabbed a cup for herself, and settled down in an unoccupied chair, throwing her bag down beside it.  
"Hey. So how was your first night in the big city?" Eames smiled, as she too settled down with her coffee.  
"You mean this big city? Cramped, mostly."  
Eames sniggered. "Really?"  
"Oh yeah. This big city on a 'lean-on-your-old-college-friends' budget landed me on a sofa in Brooklyn. And that sofa wasn't made to accommodate a sleeping human."  
Eames laughed. Goren on the other hand seemed not to notice the conversation between the two of them, already preoccupied with the black, leather bound book he and Miriam had found at the victims apartment the night before. Exchanging looks, Miriam and Eames turned in their chairs to join him. He sat, studying the pictures that had been fastened to the book's pages, all of them spread out on an area of his desk. Only when both women leaned in to get a closer look he seemed to notice that he wasn't alone in the room. The distraction displayed in his face at this apparently new observation was only fleeting, and it took only a second before he had turned one of the photos to face the two of them. Eames pointed to one of the people in the picture, a young woman with shoulder length black hair, a face so pale that it looked as if it was sculpted from the finest white marble, and almond shaped grey eyes that seemed oddly distant, like she was looking at something only she could see, even though she was looking straight into the camera.

"This one is Huntley's sister. Serena. She's the one who found him."  
"And that's him in the middle," Miriam joined in, "he looked a lot better alive than he does dead."  
The look she got from Eames seemed as a sort of reprimand for once again stating the obvious, but the tone of her voice, a sadness of sorts, suggested differently.  
"Most people do, Miriam. Most people do."  
Miriam could only nod.  
"But who's this? I haven't seen her before."  
Miriam pointed at a third person, another young woman, this one so physically different from Serena Huntley that it was almost strange to see the two of them in the same picture. This one was blonde to such a degree that her hair seemed almost white, her skin was also pale, but as opposed to Serena Huntley she had freckles, and bright blue eyes. Eames shrugged, her eyes finding Goren's across the desk.  
"Kaye Kegler perhaps?"  
"Could be. We need to find her."  
Eames nodded, and her whole appearance revealed that she had waited for exactly those words.  
"I'll start…see what I can dig up."

Goren held Eames' gaze for a moment, before he shifted it to Miriam.  
"Do that. Miriam," there was a short pause, enough time for her to move all of her focus over to Goren, "I need you to decipher this." Like he had previously done with the photo, he flipped the leather bound book itself around so that it now faced Miriam instead of him. Stunned, Miriam looked down on the book's pages.  
"Oh you have got to be kidding me!"  
Looking up, she found herself again looking straight into Goren's eyes, and noticed that a mischievous smile was now present on his lips. She thought it similar to the one he had displayed when he had spooked her the first time they had been to Huntley's apartment, but she didn't dwell on the smile. She was too astonished over what she had just seen. "Are you telling me, for real, that Damien Huntley wrote his journal in runes?"  
It seemed Goren could not help himself from smiling at the look of utter surprise on her face, but never the less he was quick to point out a flaw in her observation.  
"Seeing as I don't read runes, there is really no way for us to be sure that really is a journal, unless you know anything that would suggest just that. What can you tell me about the book?"  
Miriam shrugged.  
"At first glance, not much. The victim was thorough, and left handed, but other than that…"  
"What makes you say that?"  
Miriam traced one finger around the pages of the opened book.  
"Even though he was thorough, from what I can see he put some pride into making these pages appear as beautiful and flawless as possible, he used an ink pen, not a ballpoint, so the ink smeared slightly when his hand went through it."  
She glanced up at him, and saw that he was still smiling.  
"Spoken like an expert."  
"Try experienced. If you had any idea how many times I've ended up with black or blue hands because of that."  
She smiled back, before looking down in the book's pages once again.  
"So, you don't know what it says either?" He said, with disappointment radiating from his voice, even though he tried to mask it out of courtesy to her.  
"No. Not right off the bat like that, no. In my line of work you can be set to face letters from the Second World War one day, and a document dating back to the Civil War the next. I try to be versatile, but I'm not an expert in every historical period."  
She saw the disappointment clearly written all over his face now, as if their case had just jumped several steps backwards simply because of her answer. She caught his glance, gave him a wry smile, and continued;  
"But give me a few hours…"  
The disappointment was gone from his eyes in a flash, and was just as quickly replaced with something that could only be described as pure eagerness. Smiling again, he cocked his head to one side, as if he was enjoying the fact that she was teasingly playing a game with him, however small.

Miriam stood up, and for a few moments she could look down upon this giant of a man, who seemed like such a gentle personality, yet there was something…something strong, powerful, and even frightening about him sometimes, something that was only vaguely visible in his eyes in moments when he forgot to mask it, that led her to believe that he was so much more than he was letting on.

She let her fingers glide over the smooth pages of the book one more time before she slammed it shut, and picked it up, the leather surprisingly cool in her hands, weighing it as if by doing that the book would begin to talk to her. Goren's attention was now turned from her and to the contents of the computer screen on his desk. Eames was nowhere in sight. Suddenly she was on her own again, but she didn't mind. She felt her curiosity being rattled by the mysterious book, and even though she had started to feel sorry for Damien Huntley she couldn't wait to get her hands on his secrets. She knew she should perhaps feel a bit guilty because of it, but whatever guilt she had it was overridden by the ever present curiosity. But it wasn't so much the secrets the book possibly held, it was the challenge of deciphering them that caught her the most. With one last glance around her she grabbed her bag from where she had thrown it, and prepared to leave. Just before she was about to exit the room, she heard Goren's voice call her back.  
"Where are you going?"  
Turning, she saw him looking up from his computer screen. The moment was too good to pass up, and she couldn't resist quipping a simple;  
"You know where to find me."  
And he would, she knew he would. From what she could tell he read people as easily as she read her books. She would not be difficult to read for him, but never the less, it was fun to make him try.

A slight smile played around his lips as he watched her back move away from him. She seemed to have fun testing him, like she was trying to figure out just how good he was at his job. But something else, something in her eyes, and her smile, told him that she already knew. It was as if they were both playing a game with the other, not of deception but of exploration, each of them slowly peeling away thin layers of the others personality, but at the same time knowing that neither of them would never get to the bottom.

Just as he ripped himself out of that train of thought, Eames appeared again, sliding into a chair on the desk opposite him.  
"Now, if you're done flirting with the newbie, I know who the unknown girl in the picture is and where to find her."  
He eyed his partner, and found a roguish smile on her face, like she had when she was teasing him about something, but also a flash in her eyes that she always had when she knew they were about to get somewhere.  
"I wasn't flirting…" he said, with a sheepish smile on his face, that he knew, after knowing her for years, wouldn't be able to fool her.  
"Ok…" Eames said with a hesitation that clearly meant that there was more to that sentence.  
"So if you aren't flirting, why do you let her play these little games with you? Usually you're the one who plays games…"  
He didn't answer, partly because he didn't know what to say. He hadn't really given much thought to the fact that what they were doing was a kind of game. It had come so naturally, as a method of intellectual exploration. He had enjoyed seeing her come into a setting that was in no way familiar to her, and thrive in the face of a challenge.

He changed the subject.  
"Who's the girl?"  
Eames shrugged, knowing when her partner found it in his best interest to clam up about his personal life, if his life did indeed have a section of his life that could be described as personal. Sometimes it seemed like his life existed only in the hours everyday that they spent together working their cases, and as if every aspect that should belong in his personal life found their way into the space of those hours.  
"Kaye Kegler, just as we thought. She wasn't difficult to track, she's a freshman at Columbia…Political Science, just like the vic."  
"And?"  
There was more to that sentence as well, he had worked with Eames long enough to know that.  
"And she works at a printing agency."  
"Which could explain the source of the ink we found in the victim's apartment. Let's go talk to Ms. Kegler, shall we?" Eames only smiled, the same roguish smile, and gave a quick nod.

They found Kaye Kegler in an apartment building in Queens, a building that had definitely seen brighter and better days. The door that would lead them into Kaye Kegler's apartment looked slightly crooked, like it didn't fit entirely in its framework, and even the numbers telling them that this was indeed apartment number 153 looked askew. Goren knocked, no answer came. He knocked again, more insistently this time, still nothing. As he prepared to knock a third time, a voice came from behind them. Both Goren and Eames spun around.

"Can I help you with something?"  
The voice belonged to a young woman, instantly recognizable, with the white-blonde hair and strikingly blue eyes, from the picture found in Damien Huntley's possession. She was dressed casually in jeans and a white tank top, with a red, oversized cardigan jacket over. On her feet was a pair of Converse All-Star's as brightly red as her cardigan. She was carrying a laundry basket filled with wet clothes.Eames, acting as through instinct alone, instantly took the lead.  
"I'm Detective Eames from NYPD Major Case; this is my partner Detective Goren. We're looking for Kaye Kegler."  
The young woman seemed a bit surprised by the sudden serious turn of the situation, but never the less she answered dutifully.  
"I'm Kaye Kegler. What can I help you with, detectives?"  
"We're investigating the murder of Damien Huntley…Could we come in for a minute?"

Most of the color drained from the young woman's face at the mention of the name, but she nodded, rather absentmindedly.  
"Yes-I…I heard about that."  
Rather gingerly Kaye Kegler fished a keychain out of her jeans pocket, and proceeded to unlock the door of her apartment. With a well placed foot she managed to hold the door open for the two detectives, while balancing her laundry basket to a safe place on the floor of the hall.

Kaye Kegler's apartment consisted of the usual somewhat organized chaos of a young person on their own in life for the first time, enjoying their newfound freedom. Books and magazines lay scattered on most of the available surfaces, as well as some CDs and the occasional beauty product.

"Sorry about the mess," the young woman said apologetically with a sheepish smile over her shoulder to the two detectives. However messy the rest of the apartment was, the couch that was crammed into a corner of the living room was almost strangely free of the clutter that filled the rest of the room. The young woman let herself fall down between the pillows in a cloud of brilliant, long, blonde hair. Eames followed, but remained standing.  
"How well did you know Damien Huntley?"  
Kaye Kegler shrugged.  
"His sister, Serena, introduced me to him when I started Columbia. We hit it off, he would help me out on occasion if I had trouble understanding some of my classes… but we weren't a couple, like his mother thought. Just friends, pretty good friends, but still…just friends."

"I understand," Eames said calmly, before continuing,  
"Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt him, in any way?"  
The expression on the young woman's face changed, her eyes widened in horror, as if it only now occurred to her that someone had actually been wanting to hurt Damien Huntley.  
"No, he was…he was a good guy. At least that's the way I saw him…I never did get the chance to meet many of his friends, though, so if one of them hated his guts I wouldn't be able to tell you."  
Eames nodded, and almost unmarkably changed her approach.  
"How well do you know Serena Huntley?"Again, the young woman sitting on the couch shrugged.  
"A bit better that I knew her brother, I suppose, but I haven't really known her for much longer."

"How was the relationship between Serena and Damien?" Eames inquired, masterly camouflaging her relentless search from a viable motive from her voice.  
"Fine, I suppose. Damien was…I mean, he was nice and all, but he had some strange areas of interest. Old Norse gods, myths and worldview and I don't know what else…I never understood why he was so deep into it, I mean, he had everything going for him, he didn't need the 'cool outsider' stamp on him. Serena was shy, almost introvert at first. I didn't understand why she came and struck up a friendship with me, of all people. She was not much of a people person, but extremely protective of those she knew. Damien especially…"  
Kaye fell silent, and so, for a moment, did Eames. Looking around she found no trace of her partner, something which didn't initially surprise her. She was used to him lurking around the home of a potential suspect, and sometimes she did wonder in all honesty if he was looking for clues or if he was just trying his best to piss off the respective home owners, whether suspects or harmless witnesses.

A sudden crash coming from an adjacent room brought an abrupt end to the silence. Eames' hand instinctively positioned itself over the holster that held her service weapon. Moving as quickly as she could while constantly telling herself not to rush, Eames moved back through the living room and towards the hallway. She came as far as the doorway between the two rooms before she saw the source of the commotion.  
"Goren! What the hell?!"

"What the fuck are you doing in my wardrobe?!?"  
Kaye Kegler had followed Eames into the hallway, and was now observing a six foot four New York City police detective trying to untangle himself from a mess of shelves and hangers. Eames fought hard to disguise a grin, but failed miserably, which in turn earned her a furious look from Kaye Kegler. In a second Eames had turned serious again, raising an eyebrow at Goren, as if to say; 'this would be a good time to start explaining yourself'.

Goren, by now out of the wardrobe, turned to survey his unintentional audience.  
"Sorry about that," he said, looking at Kaye Kegler as if had just knocked over a cheap porcelain trinket that had been a gift from her great aunt, and not refurbished her entire wardrobe.  
The young woman stared back at him with a mixture of anger and utter disbelief. Goren didn't seem to take notice of that, and instead continued;  
"You have ink on one of your shoes."  
Eames eyes shifted from Goren to the younger woman standing beside her, silently looking for any reaction, knowing that a few steps away Goren was doing the exact same thing. The reaction they both saw was almost instant, and defensive.  
"So what? I work at a printing agency…"  
Goren looked at Eames with a look that signaling that she should continue asking the questions, while holding up a high-heeled leather shoe by one of the straps. The heel of the shoe shone black in contrast to the rest of it, almost glinting in the dim light of the hall.

"Do you usually wear high heels to work, Miss Kegler?" Eames asked, not missing a beat.  
Whatever defenses Kaye Kegler had built up were about to be broken down, and it seemed that she knew, because although her appearance was still defensive, something in her eyes betrayed her. She was afraid, and had every right to be, because she was about to stare a murder charge right in the face.

"This places you at the crime scene, Miss Kegler. And right now, you're our most likely suspect. I'm starting to like you for this murder. If you have a good explanation that can make me think otherwise, now is the time to start talking."  
Eames voice was calm, and she spoke slowly, knowing that a panicking suspect wasn't a positive thing.

"I didn't kill him! I swear I didn't…"  
"Then why were you in his apartment?"  
"Because he'd invited me! Or, at least that's what I thought… He texted me earlier that day, asking if I wanted to come by his apartment later…"  
Eames raised an eyebrow, which didn't go unnoticed by the woman beside her.  
"It wasn't like that. I told you we weren't a couple. We were friends, we hung out. Mostly at his place. I went over there after I'd finished my lectures that afternoon. That's where it got strange, to say the least… He didn't answer the door, and that sort of scared me, because he was usually pretty quick about that. I stood there for a few minutes, waiting, before I tried the door. It was open…so I went in. I thought that he might be so caught up in something that he hadn't heard me knocking."

"Was that like him?" Goren asked quietly.  
"Oh yeah," Kaye Kegler nodded,  
"he'd hover over his books for hours on end, some huge tomes that I wouldn't even touch with a pair of pliers. I never understood why all that mythology stuff he was into was so important to him, but it was…so I just let it slide. Figured that it was part of who he was, or who he tried to be…and I tried to respect him for that. I mean, I liked him, he was my friend…"

"Let's go back to what you saw, Miss Kegler," Eames continued, "You came into the apartment, and then what?"

"It was dark. I couldn't see anything at first… The air was heavy, warm, it was difficult to breathe. I don't know if it was incense or what it was… There were a few candles burning, I could see that when my eyes got used to the room. And then…"  
Kaye Kegler froze, and the look in her eyes told Goren that in this moment she wasn't seeing him or Eames, she was seeing whatever it was that she had seen walking into Damien Huntley's apartment, and by her eyes he could tell that whatever it was, it had scared her.

"What did you see, Kaye?" Asked Goren gently, as if trying to coax information out of a skeptical child.  
Kaye Kegler's eyes found his, and with them she silently pleaded him to get her through this.  
"I saw Damien first…he was…he was lying on the desk, that big marble thing in his living room."  
Tears sprung from her eyes and ran down her cheeks, but she didn't bother to wipe them away.  
"Then…I saw the sword…and…"She stopped, fighting even harder not to break down in tears. Slowly Goren walked over to her, only now seeing the time fit to approach.

"Kaye, look at me," he said softly, carefully gripping her shoulders so she had no choice but to face him.  
"You saw who did this to your friend, didn't you Kaye?"  
With a terrified look on her face, she nodded.  
"Tell us. He was your friend, and from what you've told us he was a good friend to you. Do right by him, Kaye."  
"You don't understand… I'm between a rock and a hard place here."  
"Why?"  
"Because…I am about to choose one friend over another."Goren cocked his head slightly to one side, and surveyed the young woman now standing right in front of him. Then he nodded almost unnoticeably.  
"Give me the name, Kaye. I need to hear it from you."

Kaye Kegler seemed undecided for a minute, then nodded and straightened up like she was readying herself to weather out a storm. Then she opened her mouth and spoke two words.

"Serena Huntley"


	6. What you see through a mirror

**Disclaimer: **All the characters of Law and Order: Criminal Intent belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. No money is being made from this, and no copyright infringement is in any way intended. The original characters of Miriam Sage, Damien Huntley and Serena Huntley are of my creation and therefore belong to me.  
**Author's Note:** Alright, finally, here is the last chapter of Heathenry. I want to say thank you to all of you who have reviewed this story, it has made me so happy knowing that someone has read and enjoyed my first attempt at a piece of CI fanfiction. And thank you to my friend Mia, for being persistent that I finish this. I hope all of you enjoy this chapter as well!

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"Serena Huntley?!"James Deakins eyed his two top detectives with a look that suggested that they had taken turns hitting him in the face with a brick. Both the detectives seemed relatively unfazed by that look, they had both seen it several times before.

Taking a deep breath, Deakins steadied himself, trying to make himself comfortable with the fact that this was where the evidence, and his detectives, was leading him in this case. "Alright, so Kaye Kegler, who could very well file charges against one of my detectives for destruction of property, is pointing the finger at the victim's sister. Is there anything I can give the DA, besides Goren's gut instinct, that can back up that accusation?"

The three of them, the captain himself and the two detectives assigned to the case, sat in his office going over the case in as much detail as they had. The Assistant District Attorney, Ron Carver, had insisted they do just that, because as he had pointed out to the captain earlier that day; "I'm going to have a large enough problem prosecuting a family member of Damien Huntley's, without Major Case screwing something up. This needs to go by the book, Captain."

"Kaye Kegler's word got us a warrant. CSU found a sword, similar to the one in Huntley's apartment, with the vic's blood on it, and Serena Huntley's fingerprints on the hilt. Safe assumption that it's the sword missing from the vic's living room."

Alex Eames slid a standard folder across the Captain's desk, containing close-up pictures of the hilt of a broadsword, together with a fingerprint that had been lifted off the hilt by CSU.

"Well, that _is_ something, Eames," said Deakins, "but is it enough? Goren?"

Robert Goren had risen from his chair and was pacing back and forth behind Eames. Slowly, as if he was just now realizing it himself, he said:

"We don't have motive. Why would Serena want her brother dead?"

"Her reason is probably the same as most other people who kill a family member. Usually it's either jealousy, desperation…or mercy."

Goren spun around, facing his captain, suddenly eager.

"That one. Mercy."

"Oh, come on guys…" Eames joined in. "You think this is a mercy killing? Damien Huntley was found in his own living room with a broadsword through his chest! What part of that spells out 'mercy' to you?"

"He was sedated. He probably didn't feel a thing," Goren said eagerly to his partner, quickly becoming more and more confident that they had finally found the reason for the human behavior that the evidence had pointed out to them.

"That's not mercy, Bobby, that's pre-meditation," Eames said, her voice giving away that she was far from as enthusiastic about the motive as her partner was.

"That's what the DA's going to claim," Deakins shot in, "Carver's not going to like us much if we hand him a possible case of euthanasia. He wants someone to prosecute for this."

"There is nothing pre-meditated about this," said Goren, still confident that this had been an act of mercy, and not a pre-meditated murder.

"There were no prints on any of the pill bottles found in the victim's apartment, apart from Damien Huntley's, which isn't strange, considering the fact that he had cancer that was eating him from the inside out. If Serena Huntley planned to kill her brother, and if she wore gloves when handling the pill bottle, why didn't she wear gloves when handling the sword?" He continued in an explanatory voice, trying to convince the two others to see his reasoning.

Silence fell in Captain Deakins' office. Goren had once again brought them into a standstill in a case that had gone in every direction possible, backwards, forwards and apparently also sideways. Serena Huntley had committed murder by definition, but she had little or nothing to gain from it.

"She didn't plan it. He did."

Miriam Sage stood right inside the door, having apparently appeared there so silently that none of the three police officers had noticed her before she spoke.

"Where have you been?" Asked Goren, before he could stop himself, earning a somewhat surprised side glance from his Captain.

Miriam didn't answer straight away. Instead she found a chair in a forgotten corner of the office, and moved it to the desk where Eames and Deakins still sat. Then she pulled out the leather bound book that contained Damien Huntley's life according to himself, and placed it on the desk, open on the last written page. Only now did she speak.

"I have spent all of last night and the better part of this morning trying to convince myself that I'm not reading this wrong. I've been in contact with all the people I know who know anything about runic script. And there is no way I've gotten this wrong. Damien Huntley planned this himself."

"Alright, Miriam, walk us through this." Deakins said with a note of exasperation to his voice. There had been too many unsubstantiated theories flying around on this case, and even though it was usually on target, Goren's gut instinct couldn't bring a case home with the prosecution. Now he was hoping that Miriam would have better luck.

Leafing through several pages in the journal, Miriam found a page a little more than halfway through. Resting her index finger on the page, she started her explanation.

"It starts here, with the death-rune. My guess is that this was the day he found out that his cancer was terminal. You would obviously have to check his medical records to confirm that, but it appears to me that he is confronted with his own death. The next weeks are a bit back and forth, lots of ups and downs, but reading from the runes he was going through the five stages of grief,"

Miriam was turning more of the pages over, until she had almost reached the end of the book.

"…before finally reaching acceptance, here." She pointed to the page again.

"After that he made his choice. The next rune he wrote means 'destiny'. What I'm going to say next is my own opinion, but I think he was ready, as ready as a twenty three year old man faced with his own death can be. For him this was a matter of going out in style, in a way that meant something to him. And for that he used his sister…"

The room was silent for a while before Deakins spoke.

"Ok, so it's fairly clear that we're talking about a case of euthanasia here. It doesn't change the fact that it's illegal in the state of New York. As far as the law's concerned we have evidence to prove that Serena Huntley murdered her brother…"

He sighed.

"Alright, bring her in. See what she has to say for herself. And get a hold of the vic's medical records. We'll need to confirm that he really was dying from the cancer.

Late that afternoon, Miriam Sage found herself standing on one side of a two-way mirror, looking into one of Major Case's interrogation rooms. The darkness around her made the glaring light of the room she was looking into all the more bright, so she sometimes had to squint her eyes to see clearly what was happening in there. Beside her stood Captain Deakins, and on the other side of her another man, the Assistant District Attorney, an African American who had introduced himself as Ron Carver. He struck her as somewhat imposing, with a rather strict appearance and a no-nonsense manner about him. On the other side of the glass, detectives Goren and Eames were questioning Serena Huntley, or, to be more exact, Serena Huntley's legal representation. Serena Huntley herself wasn't saying much, and she was certainly not admitting to murder.

"Mr. Chadwick, your client's fingerprints were on the weapon used to murder Damien Huntley."

Miriam heard Eames' voice clearly through the glass. So far she had done most of the talking, together with Mr. Chadwick, Serena Huntley's lawyer. Goren hadn't said a word so far, but his eyes were on Serena Huntley. Only occasionally would the latter meet his glance.

"Which only proves that my client handled the sword at some point," the lawyer countered.

"That sword was exhibited in a glass case in the victim's living room, together with another of the same kind. Why would your client have touched the sword?"

The lawyer didn't say anything, and Eames leaned back in her chair with an almost triumphant glare across the table at him.

Miriam's eyes changed from Eames to Goren again. He was now sitting hunched on his chair, still peering across the table at a now equally hunched Serena Huntley, fighting a battle of wills to keep eye contact between them. Suddenly Serena Huntley straightened, and, with a voice that was surprisingly strong, almost cried:

"Stop!"

Her lawyer half turned in his chair, and six pairs of eyes, three inside the room and three outside, were on her. Only now realizing that she herself had caused the attention, she crept silently back into her invisible shell.

But now Goren was there, and Miriam realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for.

"Stop what, Serena?"

He had straightened up now, and it was strange to see him across from the frail, almost fairy-like Serena Huntley.

"Stop looking at me like that! Like I'm some sort of…criminal. I'm not! I'm not a criminal"

"What are you?" Goren asked quietly. The young woman across the table didn't answer him, but her expression showed bewilderment, like she didn't know what she was.

"Your brother was dying from acute leukemia. That must have been hard for you to watch…"

"It was," she said, with a voice so low it was barely a whisper.

"But the worst was seeing how our parents started to treat him, especially our father. He was going to send him away."

"Where?"

"I don't remember the name. Someplace far away, someplace he could die. Die a quiet death, and not cause a stir."

"That's cruel thing to do," Goren added calmly. From the other side of the glass, Miriam saw that he was slowly getting her to open up to him. Some sort of confidence was bridging its way between the two of them. The young woman's legal representative now sat on the sideline. He knew that if she wanted to talk, there was little he could do to stop her.

"To my father all disease is a form of weakness. So you can imagine the horror that must have gone through his head when his only son was diagnosed with a form of leukemia that comes from a genetic pre-disposition. That couldn't be allowed out into the public…"

Serena Huntley paused for a while to survey her listeners, in particularly the one sitting straight across from her. This was the first time during the course of the interrogation that Miriam saw her make eye contact with Goren. When nobody said anything to interrupt her, she continued:

"And when Damien got the news that there would be no going back, my father started to plan things…but so did Damien. He didn't want to waste away in a hospital bed until there was nothing left of his life but pain, clinging to a hope that he had realized long ago would never come. That wasn't my brother's personality.

When Serena Huntley stopped her tale again, she was fighting to hold back tears. And yet she spoke of her brother with an odd sort of pride present in her voice.

"I knew he'd ask me. But I didn't think I could go through with it…he was my brother, after all."

"You knew he'd ask you to do what?" Goren asked.

Now the defense lawyer was awake again, and with a warning not to his voice, he said his client's name. His client looked at him, but paid no heed to the warning, and answered the question.

"To finish the job, and end what the cancer had started. To help him make his death the way he wanted it to be. To make it mean something.

There was silence, both in the interrogation room and on the other side of the looking glass.

It was getting late, and darkness had enveloped the city of New York, when Robert Goren could finally breathe in something other than the stale office air of One Police Plaza. The A.D.A had been surprisingly silent about whether or not any charges would actually be filed against Serena Huntley, but knowing A.D.A Carver, Goren assumed that there would be.

He was ripped out of his thoughts when he became aware of a movement beside him. He turned and saw Miriam standing there, her face half hidden by shadow. Even though he couldn't see her face, he could make an educated guess as to what went through her mind. After years in Major Case, there were few cases that could surprise him with their outcome, and this had not been one of them. But for her, who was used to deal with life and not death in any form, except on paper, these past few days must have affected her quite differently. But, he thought, she had handled herself well.

Careful not to approach her too suddenly, he walked over to her.

"Hey."

Her eyes that had been looking at something out on the street, changed their focus and rested on him. She smiled gently at him.

"Oh, hey… Didn't see you."

"Are you okay?"

She looked at him, as if to see if he really meant it, then said;

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok. I guess I'm just…surprised. I just though it would take more time to close the case, and then suddenly…everything untangles right in front of my eyes. And it's over."

"Sometimes that's just the way it goes. And other times it stays with you for years. And you can't tell which is which. Some cases are obvious, others aren't."

Silence fell, and each looked at the other, a form of understanding showing in the glances they sent each other. Finally, Goren smiled.

"What?"

He shrugged.

"Nothing. It's just…you did a good job, helping us out with this. One phone call and you were thrown into something that you had no experience with. You did good, Miriam."

She was silent for a moment, but then she smiled, and cocked her head slightly to one side to look up at him.

"Thank you, detective."

The way she emphasized the word 'detective' made him smile again. There was something playful, humorous, in her voice that told him she was ready to shed some of the professionalism. She, like him, was off the clock.

"Can I buy you a drink, before you go back to Washington?"

Surprisingly enough, his voice sounded more confident than he really felt at that moment. He wouldn't like a rejection, especially not from her, because although he had denied it to his partner, he did like this woman. There was something about her that made him want to smile when she was close, without him being able to put his finger on what it was.

Luckily for Robert Goren this night, now it was Miriam's turn to shrug and with a raised eyebrow proclaim:

"Yeah sure. Why not?"

* * *

**A/N II: **I would really like your opinions on how this story turned out. Is the Goren/Miriam storyline one I should continue, or are the two of them just best left as is? Again, thank you for all feedback, it's very much appreciated! 


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